Lightbox leads $4 Mn Series A round in sanitary napkins maker Nua

Female wellness brand Nua has raised $4 million in its Series A funding led by venture capital firm Lightbox and participated by existing investor Kae Capital. The firm will deploy the fresh proceeds towards technological and product development besides hiring and marketing.

Founded by Ravi Ramachandran, Swathi Kulkarni and Projjol Banerjea in 2017, Nua makes sanitary napkins and sells them online. It works on an innovative direct-to-consumer model that offer customised sanitary pad boxes based on their individual needs.

It also delivers the products to customers’ doorstep on a subscription basis.

The startup claims to build a strong community of almost 100,000 women. Nua delivers its productsacross the country and counts 50 per cent of total sales from tier 2 and tier 3 cities.

Nua plans to include more products under menstrual hygiene and women’s wellness portfolio. Considering high demands from Southeast Asia and the Middle East region, Nua may enter these markets soon.

Notably, it was amongst 128 startups that were funded by DPIIT’s (formerly DIPP) Fund of Funds.

Besides Nua, Carmesi, Elize, and Saathi are some notable startups in the consumer-centric brand in the female hygiene care space.

Biodegradable sanitary napkins manufacturer Saathi was referred as the third most innovative companies from India by American business magazine Fast Company.

For Lightbox, Nua was the maiden deal after raising its third fund in September 2018. The fund size was also expanded by $50 million to a total corpus of $200 million by the Mumbai-based VC firm.